Senate Rejects Obama Push to End Oil Subsidies

Despite a last minute plea by President Obama, the Senate today rejected a plan to end oil company subsidies.

“Right now, the biggest oil companies are raking in record profits –- profits that go up every time folks pull up into a gas station,” said Obama in a Rose Garden speech this morning. “But on top of these record profits, oil companies are also getting billions a year — billions a year in taxpayer subsidies -– a subsidy that they’ve enjoyed year after year for the last century.”

The president stressed the need for increased domestic oil and gas production, but also for alternative energy. “It also means that we’re going to keep developing more advanced homegrown biofuels, the kinds that are already powering truck fleets across America,” he said. “We’re going to keep investing in clean energy like the wind power and solar power that’s already lighting thousands of homes and creating thousands of jobs.”

Truman Project Fellow and Operation Free Veteran Terron Sims was present at the Rose Garden address (top center in photo) and said he was proud to stand with the President and offer support for the administration’s energy initiatives to reduce dependence on foreign sources of oil. “I’m glad that my Commander in Chief is doing what it takes to make sure we have true energy independence by taking steps to reduce our oil use and increase clean, renewable sources of American energy,” Sims said. “I hope Congress will work with the President on these goals for the sake of America’s security.”

Sims is a former US Army Captain and Iraq War veteran. Operation Free, a campaign of the Truman National Security Project, is a national coalition of US military veterans working to send the message that America’s security relies on ending our addiction to oil and establishing clean, renewable sources of energy.

The attempt to curtail oil company tax breaks was defeated in a Senate filibuster this morning to prevent the legislation from advancing. Republicans against the measure were joined in opposition by Democrats from oil-rich states.